Nutritional Status of Children- A Comparative Study among Students in Government and Private Schools

Abstract

A healthy diet is essential to a child’s growth and development because it helps them to establish a firm foundation for staying healthy from an early age and also ensures healthy development of the brain and other key organs which further helps in the development of immunity against infectious diseases as well as decreases the incidence of malnutrition in all of its manifestations. The goal of the study is to compare and assess the nutritional status and its risk factor among children in Private and Government Schools. A Cross-sectional observational study was carried out among 200 samples in selected schools of Bengaluru. The data was collected by using self-designed and validated questionnaire, responses were recorded and BMI & waist-hip ratio were calculated. It was found that the underweight prevalence was much higher among Government School students and overweight prevalence was higher among Private School students.